Pillars of Eternity Wiki Guide

The Old Watcher

Once you finish talking to the old dwarf woman, near a wall to the south of you will be a man named Eder. If you want him to join your party, then you can talk to him now. You'll have to exhaust some of his dialogue options to do it, but he is a very valuable ally if you want him to join your team. You can then talk to Urgeat who will tell you that now is not a good time to live in Gilded Vale, and that we should do something else instead of staying here. If we head to the east trail, we'll be going to the next area: Esternwood.

There isn't much to do in this area. At the beginning of the trail, you can head up north to fight some skeletons and find a Fine Crossbow on a corpse. If you follow the trail all the way, you can find a way to Raedric's Keep, where the cousin of Lord Raedric will ask for your assistance in killing him. This is a side quest however, and not required for the story in any way. We'll want to take the trail until it leads us south, and head to Black Meadow.

In Black Meadow, there's not much to do here either. If you follow the path west, you'll find a group of bandits who you can kill for some loot, as well as a crate that if delivered to the blacksmith in Gilded Vale, will give you some experience, copper, and a discount at their shop. To get to Caed Nua, however, we'll want to take the road south-east. We'll find some enemies along the way, particularly Forest Trolls, but if you keep going south-east after that you'll reach another trail that will lead us to Caed Nua if we continue eastward.

Once we reach Caed Nua, there will be another companion we can recruit once we pass the bridge. Kana is another valuable companion to recruit, as he has a Blunderbuss ranged weapon equipped on him that would greatly benefit any team. He is also a Chanter, which is a great help early on in the game.

Be warned, when you go inside of Caed Nua, there are a LOT of dangerous enemies inside. Particularly Shadows, which can stun your party members. Take the area slowly and if you're low on health, don't be afraid to rest or head back to Gilded Vale.

Once you've cleared out the area well enough, you'll want to go to the stronghold, which is located in the north-eastern part of the map. There will be some Phantoms and Shadows inside, so be careful in here as well. Once you've cleared the main room out, you can talk to the Steward, located at the end of the hall. She will tell you that Maerwald is somewhere inside. The door the the north-west will open up, and you will need to enter it and go down the floor below. Near the door, there will be a soul that tells you about Glanfathans and the Stone War.

When you go down the stairs, be careful. There will be a very large amount of spiders near the entrance, so plan how you will defeat them before you fight. The next floor down is at the south-west part of this area. Near the stairs, there will be another soul that tells you about setting fire to the Dyrwood, to weed them out, and how that it must be difficult for the person behind the soul.

When you get down to the next floor, there will be a door and another soul next to it. The soul will talk about a raid that you proposed, and how they will be soft no more against the invaders. This door leads to Maerwald, however, if you don't have enough mechanics to open it, then go to the room south-east of where you're at now. There will be some spiders, and at the end of the room, some Xaurip. Kill the Xaurip, and they will drop the a key to the door. There is also some goodies to be found in this room, such as some boots that grant Stealth+2. When you're ready, go and head into the room, where you'll find Maerwald.

Maerwald will tell you how the souls you found on the way down are memories, and how he has gone insane from having remembering multiple lives has made it so that he is not one, but several different people all in one body. He'll tell you that you've also become Awakened, and so you share the same fate. When asked how it came to be, he'll say that something strongly reminded one of your past lives into remembering, and that it will not stop. He will tell you then that the Leaden Key are the ones that you saw when you first became awakened. You'll learn that the Leaden Key headquarters are located in Defiance Bay, which will be the next destination.

Maerwald will then confuse you for someone else, and attack you. He is very difficult to defeat, as he continuously regains his Endurance throughout the fight by casting his spells. His fireball attack is also extremely strong. Try and keep him knocked down or distracted, and try to take him down as fast as possible. He has a very high Fortitude, but a very low Deflection, so many deflection attacks work very well against him.